Not Remembering To Forget
by suicidemouse
Summary: For a moment, just a breath, he is a child again. And then he exhales and he's Alec Lightwood and he knows Isabelle is not on the other side of those doors. /futuristic AU, AlecxIsabelle/


**A/N: **_ZOMG MERRY CHRISTMAS GEMA!_

_So this was supposed to be a Christmas fic for Gema227. And eventually we began to call it the [insert holiday here] fic. And though it's belated, I hope it makes up for the wait._

_So, yeah. She asked for Alec/Isabelle, and I gave it a shot. I sort of jacked the insane!Isabelle idea and played with it a bit. This is my first try at A/I, or my first one that's made it on the site. And I also haven't been working with MI much lately (OATHBOUND IS COMING, I PROMISE). So yeah, I'm a bit rusty, but I think this turned out alright, if a bit different than usual._

_Set years into the future, and also probably a little bit AU._

_Reminder: YKINMK (Your Kink Is Not My Kink). Don't hate on the Lightcest, plz kthx._

_That will be all._

_

* * *

  
_

Alec hates remembering.

He doesn't want to think about it. Doesn't want to recall what life was like before, because it's become bittersweet, or what life was like during, because that's just bitter.

It's dangerous, says the Isabelle-voice in his head. Pushing the memories back to lurk like demons in the cellar, grinning in the dark, getting ready to spring out at you when you open the door (because one day, eventually, you _will_ open the door.) But Isabelle isn't here, not in any sense of the word, and Alec decides to take a tip from Magnus, who has locked far too many grinning demons away in the cellar in his lifetime.

So when he clumsily stumbles into the doorway and Magnus smirks up at him from a newspaper, Alec goes to embrace him like nothing is wrong and tries not to taste blood on their kiss.

* * *

It's more than awkward, seeing Meliorn enter their apartment, and it's not just because of the scars on his face and the fact that Alec knows the name of the blade that put them there. Just doing some casual business, he says. Needs a bit of a legal favor form Magnus concerning some fey that've been giving half of the court a hard time. "They accuse us of being too passive towards your kind," he all but scoffs, like it's a ridiculous notion, but Alec must have gotten that look on his face again because Magnus bites his lip and invites Meliorn to sit at the table in an unusually awkward manner and Alec takes that as his cue to leave, and though it's all but certain he will be at least momentarily discussed, he does. And he can't help but feel bitter that it's Meliorn, of all people (well, "people," the insane Isabelle-voice in his head reminds him), that Magnus is discussing him with. Because even though Alec doesn't blame Meliorn, not really, it's no secret that none of this would have happened without him.

* * *

_She never really said what he did, but the crying wasn't a good sign._

_ "I'll kill him," Alec remarked to Jace that night. "I will."_

_ "Oh, my money's on Isabelle finishing him off herself," the golden boy had joked._

(It hadn't exactly been his best material at the time, but later on those words became much, much less than funny.)

* * *

"I realize that this is bordering on repetitive, but are you… alright?"

Alec doesn't answer at first, because he's trying to place the last time he had this conversation with Magnus.

"Alec?"

Last Wednesday. Right. Huh, Magnus really did have boyfriend issues to discuss with Meliorn. Meliorn and the Angel knows who else.

"Alec. Say something."

"Yeah? Yeah, I'm fine."

Magnus shoots him a look and stands up and says, "Okay, come here," and seizes him into a tight hug as soon as Alec is in reach of his long, spindly arms. "I still think about it too, sometimes," he whispers into the tangles of Alec's black locks.

"I don't," Alec protests, and he tries to pull away, and now Magnus lets him and shakes his head and leaves, saying something about "always needs to pretend" but Alec doesn't listen, can't listen, because the only person who could make him isn't Magnus. (And when Magnus is unusually quiet for the rest of the night he suspects Magnus has figured that out too.)

* * *

He can't help it. The memories bleed out from his mind.

_Dear Isabelle,_

Stiff knocks. Plastic voices. Pale terror.

_I still talk about you like I hate you, you know. But I don't._

Lidded eyes. Fingers in hair. Hands encased.

_I just feel so guilty, Izzy. I remember when Jace was distracting me from him and how bad he felt and how sorry I was._

Goodbyes replaced by disbelieving silence.

_And now here I am trying to play this off and he knows I can't focus on loving him or even pretending to right now because of you and what happened._

And then his mind supplies even things he didn't see to sightlessly feed the words streaming from his hand.

_And it's just so much like last time because I feel like I'm lying to you _and_ to him and pretty much everyone, you know?_

Angry screams, terrified screams, Sachiel clutched in pale palms and painted nails.

_It's like I'm singing a song but changing the lyrics as I go._

And then an earlier memory, one all too real, and all too wrong.

Thinking of Lightwood lips on Lightwood lips, Alec sends the letter without finishing it.

* * *

He remembers the day he watched his sister die.

The tip of Maellartach's blade pressed against her throat, the small crowd fallen into a solemn hush as the cloaked figure recites words in his head, in _her_ head. Isabelle makes no noise, even as her Marks run amok across her skin like a current is carrying them away, mixing them with the pale tint of her complexion to create a coffee and cream effect, sickly beautiful. Alec wants to cry out for her, to weep as he watches the Silent Brothers erase his Isabelle.

But Isabelle always has liked to do things for herself, and the sobs begin to come out when she realizes that she had been robbed of her strength, her visceral instincts, her history, her family, her entire essence at the tip of a sword whose heavenly wielder had created the part of her that has just been torn away.

* * *

In lieu of slim cursive in the mailbox, Alec conjures up more memories.

He sees her neck tilted in an elegant question by his side on the sidewalk, hears her breathy chuckle in his ear that his soft footsteps can't drown out, and the residing smell of her perfume playing an elusive game of tag, racing this way and that throughout the pungent odor of car exhaust.

He's not sure if he stops it or if it just stops, but it definitely goes away when he steps up to the familiar wooden doors. For a moment, just a breath, he is a child, staring at his entire future towering in front of him, the rest of his life represented in two majestic slabs of wood. And then he exhales and he's Alec Lightwood and he knows Isabelle is not on the other side of those doors.

So he turns away, face blank, and faces the opposite direction.

Alec walks.

* * *

She wishes she could remember what it feels like to say his name.


End file.
